The invention relates to a statistic coding arrangement for producing variable length code words comprising a variable number "n" of bits (n varying from 1 to N), the arrangement having an input for receiving the information to be encoded as words comprising a fixed number of bits, a first transcoding member for applying said variable length words to "n" outputs among N parallel outputs, a second transcoding member for supplying from its output the indication of the length "n".
Such arrangements are used with great advantage if one wants to reduce the information bit rate. By this encoding operation, a statistic of the words to be encoded is established. A variable length word of short length is assigned to the words which occur most often and a variable length word of great length is assigned to words of rare ocurrence. This encoding mode is particularly interesting in the field of signal transmission for which it is known to recover statistic quantities (example: speech, images, text) since it renders it possible to considerably reduce the bit rate without altering the information.
A problem to be solved for these encoders in the field of television is the processing rate; actually, each picture element must be encoded at a rate of 1/13.5 MHz.
Such an arrangement is described in the German Patent Application No. 3602808. However this application does not describe the means which are essential to obtain a high processing speed.